The problem of evil

Consider the possibility that at least one of those people experienced some of those responses you made in every instance not as examples of reciprocity. The act of answering with words is not necessarily responding. If you grasped at any possible point even if it contradicted previous ones, there is no reciprocity. Ah, they left me again. Well, sure, they found themselves alone, and so left. The noble victim tone seems out of place to me.

I did. I specifically addressed that in two ways, one based on what one is doing when stealing and how this differed from what was happening in the scenario and then I did it in relation to the definition you provided, by pointing out that one does in fact have a legal right to take weapons away from terrorists and so it is not considered, under the law, stealing.

Not relevant. I worked with YOUR definition.

Right laws can be immoral, as I have said elsewhere. But you are just shifting around. As it happens in the example given, the law, according to both you and me, is fine. It allows one to prevent a terrorist act by taking a bomb from the terrorists. It is not morally or legally an act of stealing.

That some other scenario in some other place might be is not relevant.

And you have a pattern of not responding to points or perhaps not even reading them, just jumping somewhere else and trying some other way to defend your position, rather than addressing particular points made. It ends up with one kind of rudeness where you respond that I have not addressed something when I have and then mounting arguments that have already be countered - if they have not been countered well, then demonstrate it, but is as if they never happened. That is rudeness two. It happened in the thread about moderation and it has happened in other places. It comes off like it is just too hard for you to admit you might be wrong, but I don’t know if that’s what it is.

No you have some hangups about Alan and didn’t want to talk anymore, but at least you told me. And this one has been hanging 12 days viewtopic.php?f=7&t=193363&start=225#p2698252

There may be others but I haven’t been keeping track. Maybe I shouldn’t include you, but it just it seems a ubiquitous trend. I don’t want to obligate anyone because I’d feel bad about that, but I’m just pointing out the trend of lack of consideration for others in general, whether it be on here, text, traffic, their promises. And the standards I hold have no influence on anyone else.

I told you my reasons for stopping, but you ‘know’ what my real reasons for stopping are: my hang ups. What I said my motivation was, I was incorrect about. You can mind read here and tell me what my motivations were. And that post will keep on hanging, despite how impressed I am with your psychic ability.
It is not even possible that I might have been in error about your arguments but honest about my motivations for stopping. Nor that I was right about your arguments. No, I was wrong about my motivations, period, Jeez.

I found your responses to have a lack of consideration for this reader. I explained that in that post. This is clearly not remotely a possibility to you. You keep producing words, so you must be the one being considerate. I don’t think that is necessarily the case, nor do I think it is the case in this instance.

Now you are presenting yourself as the lone honorable person, victimized by people who do not live up to a contract that I do not remember signing. I signed no contract that I must continue to respond to someone who does not seem to me to be being respectful to what he himself has said or to the work I am putting in, since, as I said in my last post in that thread, your arguments contradicted themselves and not subtly, so it felt like you would simply say anything to win or not lose your estimation of Watts. Amongst other things. If something is sufficiently disingenuous, I have feel no obligation to keep responding. Now, I am not saying you are a disingenuous person, but what was happening there, at that time seemed disingenuous to me. That possibility is just not there for you. So you know what my problem was: my hang ups.

Well, good luck with your imperviousness to feedback and your sense of victimization.

I wasn’t considering the legal aspects of stealing because I think that it’s a separate issue from the ethics of stealing.

My definition didn’t involve any legality(“Since I would define 'stealing” as taking somebody’s property without his/her permission, then it is stealing whatever the motives or intent."). My mistake was using the dictionary definition without editing it. I didn’t realize that you would fixate on the “legal rights” phrase. I didn’t want to discuss laws. But apparently that’s the most important factor for you.

I still don’t want to discuss law.

I’m sorry that you don’t like my posting style.

I was wrong to post that dictionary definition but I was not wrong in the other aspects of my posts.

These complaints of yours have grown tiresome very quickly.

Let it hang. I stand by my abilities.

That’s only your interpretation, which I don’t agree with. How am I inconsiderate?

Should I keep it a secret? Would you feel better if you didn’t know? Should I repress my emotions?

Evaluation is not a contract.

Then don’t. Did you sign a contract not to lie? So why not lie too? Shit man, take the plunge! To hell with everyone; we’re all pricks, weren’t you paying attention: misanthrope. No one can live up to my standards and I’m a judgmental hypocrite, so we’re all bad therefore you have no moral obligation, so why not just embody what I’m bitching about? Own it!

That’s entirely possible, but I’ve no clue what you’re referring to.

If you have to work at this, you shouldn’t do it. It should be fun.

I said I fixed your misunderstanding that they contradicted. No contradiction. You didn’t reply.

That’s the wrong impression. I’d love to find some good objections.

Thanks

It suddenly occurred to me that may be debatable. Remember:

If a moderator sees a poster presenting an argument and dismissing any counterpoints without engaging them, , a warning may be issued.

What’s debatable is whether you signed that contract or not. Anyway, a little irony for you.

here’s what I ‘signed’ when I registered…

The rules you quoted I have not agreed to or signed under and made it clear that I did not agree to them in the thread on those rules started by the owner. The agreement I made I have not broken.

OK, so you know I stopped responding to you there because I have a hang up with Watts and not in reaction to how I thought you were posting. Which is a fuck you to me, and so was the way you presented yourself as the only honorable person (in the world potentially) but certainly here at the forums. You might want to consider that some people may pull away from you because your attitude, that you think you are the only honorable person affects the way you communicate with them and your own ability to introspect and evaluate what you are doing. Toss in your certainty around your psychic abilities and you have a really toxic batch.

Of course it is my interpretation. And right or wrong that interpretation was why I stopped responding to you in that thread despite your psychic conclusion. Here you seem to accept that it is my interpretation. Would it be so strange if that was my interpretation that it would lead to motivating me to stop responding? And in fact it was the reason. Being bugged by Watts could easily motivate my continued critique of him, in fact that is more likely. But you are sure, for some reason, I stopped because I had a problem with Watts. Frankly that’s not just bad psychic abilities, but just plain psychologically insightless.

When someone is repeatedly willing to contradict himself and not on small points but on the main point of disagreement, without acknowledging it, it is inconsiderate because it is not honorable disagreement. It is ‘I will say anything to win or not lose’. If you were not very intelligent I would think it might just be errors. Now I don’t think you sat there and decided to not notice the serious contradictions, but unconsciously it served you and it made the discussion uninteresting and rude. When someone assumes they know other people’s motivations (online, no less) when presented with very likely other interpretations and decides to just go with his psychic abilities, that is also inconsiderate. Of me, in this instance.

No, I was just noting the position you are taking as part of a point I was making and consider your estimation incorrect. But my mentioning that you present yourself this way is not me saying you should keep that estimation to yourself. It is good you got your universal fuck you on the table.

Didn’t know what you thought you were? No. It’s helpful actually.

That’s not an emotion.

Sure.

Um what an odd thing to say, I already did stop responding in that thread, as I said I would. You noticed that so…what a weird thing to say.

Again, here you are implying that I am saying I can do bad things because I did not sign a contract to not do them. Whereas I am saying that I signed no contract to be treated poorly and I backed out. Your post seemed to be saying that it is honorable to just keep posting regardless of how you are being treated. That is not a contract I have signed nor an ideal or goal of mine. It seems to be one of yours. Me I do not consider it immoral or dishonorable to back away from having my time wasted and doing something else I find valuable and/or enjoy. Perhaps you and Iambiguous will find an infinite honor in each other and post together till death do you part in some thread. You might want to consider, I guess in your case, what to do if having fun and honorably responding forever come into conflict. I would prefer to have a more flexible approach to my activities. I am impressed you always find it fun while also being a victim.

I don’t think everyone’s bad. I don’t think you are bad or simply a prick. I think you were doing something in that thread that was disrespectful and not interesting, after a while. I think this noble victim posturing is disrespectful and not interesting. You are not everyone. And these patterns are not all you are.

Well, it’s back there in my last response in that thread.

I am not sure how that kind of telling me what I should do and what my attitude should be fits with other statements you have made about moral positions, but I’ll follow my own conscience thank you. I find value in things that are not always fun. If you only find value in activities that are fun, your ability to be introspective, for example, and to know what you are doing and ability evaluate your behavior is seriously undermined. Facing what one is doing, feeling, did and felt is often not fun in just those most important places. I mean, I am likely taking too seriously what was simply a dig, a getting a shot in at me, but it was, in this instance, fun to point out the stupidity of it on three levels. Only doing fun things can also limit skill development, should one have certain types of mastery goals. Desire for that mastery or self-knowledge is easily enough motivation however, and there is flow possible.

yes, you said you did.

So,you’ve said.

I really appreciate knowing more about how you view yourself in contrast to everyone else and how you only do things for fun. It helps me to put your introspective abilities in context. It gives me a sense of how hard it might be for you to notice what you are doing, when something important to you is at issue. It makes it easier to ignore you without a nagging feeling from my conscience that I left someone hanging who had not already left me hanging long ago. And since my conscience is clear I have not been dishonorable, as you have argued elsewhere.

I hear you Serendipity - a name I understand the relevance of better now - you saw me get out of bed before you had yours. Thing is, you think I had mine and I am so rude to leave you hanging. But not only did I not have mine, you think the way you’ve been touching me was pleasant. You think you are the one good lover, whom no one satisfies.

The second part may be true, but the first is not. In fact it is false in a couple of ways.

Serendipper,

If we look at things in terms of the progression of human rights, then I think that we’re more moral now than 100 years ago.

Very true. I have found that when things are sailing smoothly grace abounds, but when times get hard, people often want resolutions asap. It has a lot to do with people’s need for security IMV.

Here is what you said: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=193673&start=375#p2698635

I am going to give this exchange a rest for two reasons 1) It feels like you will say anything to keep Alan Watts on the pedestal. 2) As a social mammal, I am now tired of seeing emotions and the expression of emotions judged so universally negatively.

So, I do not need psychic abilities; just a memory.

And if I’ve told you “fuck you”, you should be happy I’ve not repressed my emotions like Alan Watts.

And people who issue threats or ultimatums have earned themselves a violent reaction because I am not a robot, saint, or honorable person, but an animal just like everyone else. Don’t bother with the threats because I will never give in to them. The best way to manipulate me is to play the victim and appeal to empathy. It also works with others:

I called my ISP and barked “If you reach into my pocket for an extra $5 one more time, I’m all done with you!” He basically told me to go fuck myself. A year or so later I called back “I’ve got a competing offer from DSL and I don’t know what to do. Can you help me decide which is best?” They took $20/mo off my bill and bumped my service to 100mbs.

And yes I pride myself on keeping my word and diligently replying to messages and I’m not the only person on earth who does so, but one of an extremely small minority. There are just too many people and the devices are made for convenience, not productivity, so regardless if people actually wanted to reply, they’re handicapped by convenience and couldn’t keep up with everyone anyway. Plus the fact that people are easily replaceable by virtue of fantastic amounts of them, so there is increasingly less incentive to be considerate.

If you tell me you do not want to talk to me anymore, that’s unfortunate, but there are 8 billion other people and we may as well say infinite because I couldn’t shake hands with them fast enough to keep up with the birth rate.

See, here we go again because everything you say from here on is going to be based on the psychic conclusion which was in fact correct, but you’re going to suppose it’s wrong for the rest of this post.

That never happens in practice.

Where did I contradict myself? Why didn’t you take the time to spell it out? Maybe I can’t see it? I’m not the most perceptive person on earth.

Funny how I claim no one can keep their word nor reply to messages which no one challenges, but instead I’m demonized for flattering myself for doing what should be admirable. By that logic, instead of training harder to beat the fastest runner, let’s just shoot him. Anyone not in prison should be executed lest we become self-righteous about not being criminals.

And this is exactly why works cannot save you and all religions are moot, at best. If you could be perfect, you’d be contaminated with purity and not be perfect. There is no way to win.

That’s just to say that whatever means you’re going to use to threaten me, I will tell you to do it. If you say you have no obligation to do X, then don’t.

It’s not about posting forever, but coming to a resolution.

You’re taking dad’s line: he runs from an argument because he’s afraid to be wrong, so the issue festers and pops up even more ferociously the next time until eventually he sacrifices his own son on his ego altar proclaiming that his mistake was talking to me in the first place “Damn it! I knew it! I should have kept my mouth shut. When will I learn!” So yeah, if you can’t handle being wrong or aren’t after truth, then you’re going to be betteroff not engaging me. Now, of course, you’re going to say I’m dogmatic, but I’m dogmatically going to refuse that diagnosis.

Corned beef comes with a little seasoning pack inside and I suggested we research when is the best time to add the spices because in my experience, spices can have the flavor cooked out of them so maybe it’s better to put them in at the end rather than boil them for 5 hours, well dad blew up and said “I’ve been making corned beef for 30 yrs!” and he had no interest in researching anything; only in being right. So his solution is to avoid me. No more corned beef, no more dinners, no more talking, no more relationship, no more having to be wrong. People will do anything to guard their egos. And the atheists give Abraham a hard time for attempting to sacrifice his son :laughing: They would do the same damn thing for much less.

Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

So you have no clue either.

If it isn’t fun, then you’re trying to accomplish something for which you cannot determine if it’s good. The only innocent motivation is fun.

Probably so.

Idk what to say to that.

The name implies I do not take credit for my ideas which I can only stumble upon.

I think a man is serving 2 years in prison for teaching a dog to perform a nazi salute. Is that progression of human rights? I feel like I have less rights today than 10 years ago. I don’t have the right not to wear a seatbelt or helmet. I can’t drink a beer while mowing the lawn or else risk a dui. I can’t open an account in another country to avoid the FIFO accounting policy of the US. In other words, analogizing assets to cars, if I buy a red car and a blue car, but sell the blue car first, I have to report that I’ve sold the red car first because: first in, first out.

And just today: New California Bill Would Eliminate Free Speech, Require “Online Fact Checkers”

These people will not be happy until I am strapped to a table in a rubber room for my own protection. Quantity and longevity trump quality to the communists and feminists.

Speaking of how well we are doing morality wise, have you guys seem this presentation that shows how we have never had the great stats that we now enjoy.

Richard Dawkins latest.

youtube.com/watch?v=aLulcfyqrc0

Regards
DL

The interesting thing about morality is that it’s an internalisation of self-oppression, it gets people to police themselves so they don’t need policing by others as much. But today people feel they don’t need to be moral because they feel they can be trusted to be free to do whatever they want to do to themselves.

Some other significant factors at play are that communication is increasingly enormously: if something good or bad happens, more people are able to find out about it and/or share it - even unintentionally, accidentally or opportunistically via their mobile communication technologies - and also, populations are increasing globally and local population densities are increasing: more people are closer to more other people. Travel technologies result in an increased potential for more and more people to be surrounded by more and more unfamiliar people, each communicating about one another more and more.
i.e.
Advances in technologies and the corresponding growth in populations have perhaps inadvertently resulted in both a better policing of one another by one another, and less trustingly so.

So putting all of this together: with these better technologies, higher and more blended populations, and more demands about our personal freedoms, we’re under much more pressure to act socially acceptably and less able to slip under the radar, we’re less trusting of others to act socially acceptably and more exposed to one another whether we do or don’t, we feel more and more entitled to do whatever we want, and we even have less time to gather a bigger picture about the whole thing, leaving us vulnerable to cherry-picked one-sided pictures of everyone else.

Cue the hysteria and feeling like we have less rights than we used to, on pretty much all accounts and from all sides and every angle - simply as a result of our own success as a species!

As an aside, I’m not convinced it’s a political thing at all. People seem to either distrust centralised powers more, or decentralised powers more. The former are more accountable but less free to do good or bad, and vice versa - it’s basically a choice between lower risk lower reward and higher risk higher reward. The existence of the theory that it’s all down to your brain chemistry is not surprising at all. But what if neither is the real issue, and seeming to have less rights is happening either way regardless and apolitically?

Christian capitalists discussing morally or ethics makes me lolz. Can there be any bigger hypocrites in this world?

While I love a puzzle challenge like this and think I can certainly find other, even red side of the divide, hypocrites, i think in this forum it is probably best to say. good point. And perhaps refer to how US capitalists have influenced latin americans. It not necessarily the best example, but it is so clear.

In what sense are they hypocrites?

In a Christian society, food needs to be grow, goods need to be manufactured, products need to be distributed. It’s not possible for everyone to give away all his possessions and wander the desert.

Is the only way to perform those actions via current neo-liberal capitalism?
Are their ways that do not allow, for example, corporate personhood, permanent corporate charter (that is we used to withdraw corporate charters from companies that did messed up stuff, but no more), corporate control of elected officials (that is current lobbying and election finance practices), fiat banking and banker creation of money, the variety of not based on labor types of earning (the capital part of capitalism, especially in its modern form), corporate control of media and the like`?

IOW I think in a lot of these kinds of discussions there is a false dilemma between state socialism a al the USSR and capitalism, as if the latter represents freedom of tyranny and the former is the only way to hinder the oligarchies we have today that call themselves democracies.

I didn’t say that it was the only way, but it’s a possible way. Christian capitalists would have discuss the morality and ethics of it, to determine which aspects of capitalism are in sync with Christianity and which are not.
Capitalism is a broad subject and there are many aspects to it. It includes the person who owns an auto repair shop (or hairstylist) and employs a couple of people. That sort of business does not seem to be contrary to Christian principles.

Jesus and the apostles did not provide any specific answers to those questions. There is not one true Christian position to go to. Can Christian capitalists be called hypocrites if they see some of those things as not being contrary to Christianity? I don’t think so.

To me that’s not capitalism. Capitalism is the way the economy is organized in general. The person owning the repair shop would have days very similar in many types of economic system. And that person is not a capitalist, he or she is a laborer. Or a small business owner with minor capital. He makes money off his labor. Which people do in all sorts of economies.

They can if those things lead to evil treatment of people, which they do. A Christian auto repair worker in the US has little choice but to participate in the wider economy. But to be pro-Capitalist is another matter. Most people do not realize that capitalism is many of the things it is and further a system that was democratic and even allowed for varieties of income need not be capitalist. Christian capitalists in the 80s say, were supporting evil in Latin America where corporations were doing whatever they wanted including overthrowing governments and getting people killed and stifling democracy. Wall Street and corporations connected to the Bush administration created the second Iraq war for a set of different money related reasons. No one has gone to prison for this and the reasons come down to facets of capitalism: control of government, government oversight and also media.

The auto repair shop guy does not have capital in the sense of capitalism. He makes money from his labor. The people making decisions make money through capital. The system is mainly for them. There are facets that work to varying degrees for other people, but most people are not capitalists, say in the US, even if they think capitalism is the best or least bad alternative.

The zero sum game aspects of capitalism are anti-christian. There almost no convictions for the 2008 financial crisis despite the enormous effects on the world and workers. This is because capitalism is for the capitalists, primarily. Try stealing in the ways non-capitalist class members steal and you will find out you are not considered a capitalist by the system. This does not fit with Christianity where we all have equal value. None of this means that communism, especially on a large scale, has fit with Christianity. But these are not the only choices.

Capitalism necessarily enhances the view that other people are resources (or not) and not people (or souls). It is also utterly materialistic in its view of human worth. There is no spiritual aspect to humans in capitalism, something capitalism shares with communism.

But most obviously Capitalism contradicts the Sermon on the Mount. Capitalists absolutely do not follow ‘do unto others as you would have…’ They don’t even pass the less restrictive Mosaic version that Jesus was making even tougher. Their expectations for their own treatment does not match their expectations for the treatment of others, and capitalism is precisely designed to honor, again not coincidentally, the capital owning class. Banks can loan out money and then invest it and bankers make money off of those investments. Corporations are contracts with the government where owners are treated in ways regular people are not. Capitalism is fundamentally designed for the rich to do differently unto others, then they wish to have done to themselves. And this is all direct and legal and built in. Then given the power the money gives them they can and do extend this even more.

And let me be clear on this. It is not that some bad capitalists do bad things. The system is founded on the idea that we will do unto others, NOT as we would have them do unto us. Certainly some capitalists take this further, but it is inherent in capitalism to go against the SErmon on the Mount.